reubenalbatross's Reviews (521)

Well… this was interesting. 

To begin, the timeline of my feelings about this book: 

0-30% – Started off pretty strong, and I was having a good time. 

40-50% - LOVED the drama. 

50-70% - Meh. 

70-95% - Dear lord when is it going to end? 

95-100% - We got back in the groove. 

**SPOILERS FROM HERE** 

To elaborate on my thoughts – 

Pretty good start, which I felt was similar in quality to book 1. 

There were some things that annoyed me, like Oraya’s refusal to escape the city during the armoury attack. All the way until this point her only thoughts were ‘woe is me’ and ‘I have to escape’, and then the first chance she gets she doesn’t even attempt to escape? It was a decision purely to serve the plot, and not one that made sense for her character at all. 

Also, Broadbent made pretty much no effort to remind the reader of plot points/info from book 1. So many character details (like Mische trying to get her magic back) were just talked about as if the reader could remember every exact detail from book 1, without even a hint of summary. It left me unsure what information I should know already, and what was meant to be a surprise/reveal in this book.
 
40-50%

My GOD the drama was amazing. I was fucking enthralled. 

The make-up sex scene was also pretty hot, apart from Raihn saying on at LEAST three separate occasions that ‘everything fell away’ when Oraya did something to him. If ‘everything’ fell away the first time, what was left for the other two??
 
50-70%

Nothing special, but nothing offensive. 

I did find it absolutely bizarre that Raihn and Oraya swam through a sewer twice in one day, both with a tonne of open wounds from the day before, THEN kept those same shit leathers on for two weeks without washing, and somehow didn’t get a single infection?? As fucking if. 

On the positive side, I came to really love Raihn and Mische’s strong platonic relationship, with never a hint of sexy time. Was genuinely refreshing to read. If she ends up a lesbian though, strike that from the record. 

70-95% 

The downfall of this novel. 

EVERYTHING was so dragged out. I just wanted it to be over. 

It was SO obvious that everything was going to turn out ok, they were going to win, and no-one important was going to die. It meant there was absolutely zero stakes, so I didn’t care about any of it. I wish I had been proved wrong. 

I also started to get so sick of Oraya and Raihn’s relationship dynamic. Pretty much the whole book was them ‘realising how truly in-love’ they are with each other, as if we didn’t already get that from the first book?? That meant that when they’d finally ‘made up’ there was nothing new at all, just the same stuff over and over. Inanely repetitive. 

The writing also seemed to take a massive dive in this section as well. It suddenly felt really amateurish, and I’d never seen Broadbent’s writing as such before this point. 

We also never got told so much worldbuilding information. Like what did the god’s body parts actually do?? Simon looked evil for a bit and had stronger powers, but it was nothing close to being as destructive as they were making it out to be. 

And the blood?? Oraya seemed to immediately know she could kill anyone she wanted with it, but how did she know? We never knew properly, so the stakes were never there. 

Then Oraya was so fucking shocked that the god, whose biggest tribute event is a contest where everyone kills each other, doesn’t want there to be peace in her land? Idiot. 

The double god involvement at the end just felt really cheap. Wow, here the gods come to solve all our problems with the snap of a finger. What was the whole bloody point of the book then? 

And another question – have a Rishan and a Hiaj ever had a kid together?? Obviously they must have, but we haven’t been told what the result would be. Really feels like something that could and should have been at least mentioned in this book, both with Oraya and Raihn’s relationship and the two sides now coming together. 

Suddenly it got good again. I’ve realised Broadbent is good at writing the intimate person to person a stuff (romance, rivalries, friendships), and pretty bad at large scale wars/political climates/world building. If she were to write a cosy fantasy or something, it could be really good. 

I did think it was completely fucking wild that they’re all still worshipping Nyaxia when she’s literally done nothing to help them and is going to try to take revenge at some point. She only saved Raihn at the Kejari because it was Oraya’s right after winning. What the fuck else has she done?? 

 

So to some up, this plot was horrendously fucking messy, and the good parts could not outweigh the bad. 

I was also disappointed by the lack of Lilith content, especially because she’s my favourite character in this world. Did her and Oraya ever even interact once?? What was the point of having a novella about her if we don’t get to see any more of her??
 
 I wasn’t interested in continuing this series, but seeing as the next book is in House of Shadow, I may have to give it a go. Wish me luck. 

Started this looking forward to it, but unfortunately, I’m wholly unconvinced by Mortimer’s narration style.  

It sounds like he’s reading a character profile/summing up something, rather than telling a story. It’s so choppy and doesn’t feel like anything flows. 

Essentially, it sounds like he’s just reading the story out loud, rather than actually being the character, which is especially jarring as its written in first person speaking directly to the reader. 

If I get a chance to read this physically in future, I’ll give it a go, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to stick with his narration. 

WOW this is a dark book, and I loved that about it. The sense of helplessness is overwhelming. 

I thought the 1500s timeline was incredibly strong, and the horror elements were fantastic. 

However, on finishing the book I realised that there isn’t that much actual tension in the modern day storyline. The only thing holding it for me was the idea that the two times would communicate with each other/have influence over the other, but that didn’t happen. Instead, it was a kid in hospital getting possessed, but that wasn’t massively tension filled because we pretty much knew why from the beginning, and a mum running around trying to find then returning a book. We don’t even see the interesting parts of that process. The past storyline was WAY more compelling.
 
And then coming to my major gripe of the story. Why, oh why, did the Book show images of each timeline to the other when nothing they did affected any of it?? If that hadn’t been included, I would have felt a lot happier with the ending. I was expecting a communication between the two times in some way, or their actions to influence the other’s story, but that never happened. Without them being shown images of each other, that expectation wouldn’t have been there, and I would have been happy with the only links being Edward possessing Erin and the cult/returning the book vibes in the present. The images did nothing but set me up with expectations that didn’t deliver. 
 
So, overall, I did have a good time reading this, it was really well written, the audiobook was fab, but the ending left me wanting. 

This book was truly incredible. I’m so happy that Butler continues to amaze me with every read. 

The first half of this in particular was outstanding, but the novel as a whole was incredibly written and so powerful. 

I also found myself relating to Lauren in so many ways, which is ridiculously rare for me. The sense of existential dread we share, and the awareness of it, is intense. She manages to cope a lot better than I ever could though. 

And what’s even more outstanding is that I enjoyed and was even moved by the poetry/verse in this story. Usually, poetry does absolutely nothing for me, however much I try to appreciate it, but clearly something about Butler’s style works for me across mediums. 

The only reason I’m docking .25 stars from my rating is because of the ‘hyperempathy’. I didn’t think it really added much to the story, apart from making Lauren weaker in physical situations, and I was honestly confused how it worked. 

For the majority of the book, we’re told Lauren only experiences the pain if she sees someone in pain, that it’s all ‘in her head’ and it’s her psyche making it up. This is then reinforced towards the end of the book where she manages to trick someone else into feeling less of her pain by pretending she wasn’t as injured as she really was. Ok, so by that logic, basically you see either the source of the pain or the person feeling the pain, and your brain makes you feel that pain in empathy/when you’re a kid somehow pushed blood through your skin. 

BUT, when they were in fights, and Lauren saw really badly injured people, she’d know they were either unconscious or dead because she stopped feeling their pain. She didn’t see them turn unconscious/die, but somehow her mind knew and stopped the pain? So, which is it? A real condition that somehow links her nervous system to other peoples, or a completely psychosomatic condition?? 

However, as the condition didn’t really play that much of a role in the plot, I wasn’t that bothered by the mixed messaging. If it becomes more prominent in the second book, I hope we get some more solid answers. 

At 40% in, I’d hoped the flaws in the opening of this book would have been addressed, or at least other positives about the story would overshadow them. This did not happen. 

One issue is that Collins falls into the age-old problem of characters writing absolutely unrealistic diary entries. No single diary entry ever written on Earth has transcribed such long conversations so exactly. There is no way Sophia (or anyone without a memory disorder) would be able to remember pages of exact dialogue, especially James's tedious scientific diatribes, yet apparently, she can. Authors really need to stop putting long stretches of dialogue in diary entries, it makes no fucking sense and completely breaks the immersion of the story. 

Also, all of the men are misogynistic arseholes who wouldn't even know how to pick up a child, let alone deign to look after one themselves. And God forbid they think of a woman as a real person. And all the British women are brainwashed idiots with no ambitions other than being the perfect wife. Yes, that was more the norm at the time, but not everybody was the exact same cookie cutter person. Where's the nuance?!
 
Henry is fucking annoying. His relationship with Edward is so fucking weird. 

And I didn’t even make it to where I assume Sophia and Hira form a romantic/sexual relationship, but the build-up is really weird because Sophia is basically a child in a woman’s body. 

Also, the cover, though beautiful, doesn’t make sense any sense?? The silk stops people from hearing, not people from speaking. So why are their mouths ripped away? And if instead it’s meant to be pointing out that people don’t have a voice, why the fuck include a man?? All of the men Collins cares about in this book (i.e. anyone with money) have their voices heard loud and clear. 

A disappointing book I don’t have the time for. Next! 

I can’t say for sure, but I think a lot of the issues I had with this read were due to reading it on audio, rather than with my eyes like I did the first book. 

Even 50% in, I hadn’t managed to piece together who some of the characters were, and what they did in the first book. Not being able to reference the map may have affected this, but I also felt than Parker-Chan didn’t give enough of a reminder of who the characters were. In most cases we got their name and a brief sentence that alluded to the fact they were in the previous book. Nothing else. It also doesn’t help that character lists don’t exist for this series, so despite a thorough search on the web, I couldn’t find anything to help prompt me about who some of the characters were. 

Because I didn’t have that context, I really struggled to understand their motivations, relationships with other characters, and the impact of their actions. 

I realised I was just listening to this to listen to it, rather than really enjoying and engaging with the story. It just wasn’t compelling enough without the context of character histories. All I got out of it was: 

Oh, a war, oh, a war, oh a war, oh some sex scenes where Baoxiang keeps saying how young the guy he’s fucking is, oh a war, oh a war, oh Zhu and Ouyang bonding over being horrible people who just happen to be gender non-conforming, oh look another war. 

Maybe I’ll give it another go if I get my hands on a print or digital copy, but seeing as I didn’t love the first book, it definitely won’t be a priority any time soon. 

Overall, this was a fab little horror novella. Compulsively readable, and truly disturbing. 

The only reason it isn’t getting the full five stars is because

the final explanation of the birthing cycle made no sense. The Elders are using humans to birth their young - ok, makes sense. BUT, if all the young are born, then immediately become guardians of the next human ‘parent’, they will then be killed while they’re still a kid to facilitate the next birth. So they put all this effort into birthing a kid, then the kid just gets killed anyway? Is the point of the whole process the sacrifice? Because that’s not what it read like.

I don’t mind not getting answers in certain scenarios, but when holding back answers means the whole point of the book makes no sense, it ain’t great. 

Though this is at least my third read of it, I’d forgotten just how funny this book can be. It had me chuckling out loud multiple times in the first chapter. 

Another new thing this time around was the kinship I felt with Bilbo! There’s me, just trying to lead a relatively mundane life, very cosy and comfortable with my set up, then wham bam people come along with their big ideas come and shake everything up and drag me out of my comfort zone. The apprehension Bilbo had towards everything really hit home for me - maybe I need to let my Took side out a little more. 

And as always, reading Tolkien’s work feels like coming home - a feeling I don’t think will ever go away. 

Even though I wished I’d read this before embarking on The Last King of Osten Ard series, I still had a great time reading this. It was great to see the seeds of the Norn’s deconstruction and get more of Porto’s life story. 

And what a gut wrencher of a final scene – Williams’ horror writing is really coming into force in these later books, and I LOVE it. 

This book was fab, and I’m so excited to see what Osman does next with these characters. 

25 pages in I was sobbing, so I knew I was in for a good time. The discussions around grief, relationships, and self-worth were all so tender. 

Also, marvel of impossible marvels, finally an author who can include social media normally! Almost every book I’ve read that features social media talks about it as if the author has never even picked up a smart phone. Osman, on the other hand, completely knows what he’s doing. 

It was also hilarious, more so I’d say than The Thursday Murder Club series. I found myself audibly guffawing at so many points, which is rare for me. Ferdy the taxi driver-cum-failed politician was my favourite character - absolute comedic gold. 

I’ve only knocked off .25 stars from my rating because something about the ending wasn’t quite as strong as the rest of the book, though I’m struggling to put my finger on what exactly that is. 

Nevertheless, Osman is a fantastic author, and I’m glad this new book has retained all the quality of his original series while having a distinct voice of its own.